Notes From My Captivity by Kathy Parks

Author:Kathy Parks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-07-10T08:36:38+00:00

Fourteen

Night birds call. Things buzz and rattle. The forest cracks. My nerves jump. A light rain starts up, wetting my hair and driving away at last the mosquitos that have been pestering me. I scratch at the vicious welts on my face. My stomach, shrunk from fear and lack of food, feels like an overboiled egg. The pain from my broken arm comes in waves.

Somewhere in the dark, a wild family hunts for me as though I’m a wounded animal they need to drag back and salvage part by part.

Siberia means business. I’m still astonished at the speed with which it destroyed my trip, killed everyone I knew there, and left me alone. And yet, I’m proud of myself for getting away. Using my own grave as camouflage. The article I write, defending my stepfather and condemning this murderous family, will also contain this little fact.

That’s the hope I cling to now. I have an article to write. I have a story to carry. I stand up on tired and aching legs, using the hand of my good arm to massage each leg in turn, listening to the forest around me for sounds of my captors. They must have given up on me, the way they had to finally give up on the other creatures that outran them or outmaneuvered them and left their stew pot needy.

It’s hard to see in the gloom in front of me as I move through the trees. I inhale groups of bugs, exhale mist. Claw vines away from my face. Step on the sponginess of the forest floor, breaking through every few steps and sinking up to my ankles in wet ground. My progress is slow and painful, but finally I reach the edge of the forest and the great dark expanse of the giant sunflowers, their heads lit by the starlight. Half a moon shines nearby. Low-lying dark clouds make monster shapes. I stop, listening for footsteps or voices or breathing. I look up, watching for that deranged owl to swoop my way again on orders of the witch.

The hut is out of sight, farther down the slope. My fervent hope is that the family sleeps inside, surrendered to the possibility that I’ve escaped forever, content, at least, with their clothing and their salt.

The sunflower heads tickle my fingers. My wooden cast bumps against my thigh. I feel like a ghost girl, invisible to the naked eye. Every few feet I stop and swivel my head around, listening. But there seems to be no intrigue tonight beyond the swirl of the usual Siberian nightlife: little things being hunted by bigger things, wind in the trees, the clouds releasing rain and the sky waiting for the new light of dawn.

I reach the stream and cross the bridge, my feet silent on the wooden boards. The path is a welcoming rectangle of gloom, and I enter it and begin slowly moving down the mountain. After fifty yards or so, I start to hear the roar of the water.

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